The Capture of Asteroid X19380A

The time was between 2123 and 2148. In the 22nd century, most world mineral resources were depleted, and asteroids appeared to be the only locations in the Solar System to look for resources. During the year 2132 U S intelligence discovered that there was a fleet of giant clustered rockets sitting on the launch pads in Jiuquan, the largest Chinese space port, ready for launch. Alarmed, authorities searched old surveillance files and discovered that this fleet was a part of a deep interplanetary space expedition project which began a few years ago. Famed U S space scientist Dr. David Zhang of NSEA (National Space Engineering Administration) examined the surveillance images, and discovered that a newly established Chinese corporation XinTianDi was developing a kind of humongous nuclear devices with powers equivalent to several thousand megatons (billion tons) of TNT equivalent. A Los Alamos nuclear weapon expert Jack Brown was of the opinion that such huge nuclear devices had no places in war. Meanwhile, Dr. David Zhang also discovered that the armada of humongous spaceships was also the work of XinTianDi, and a fleet of spaceships, also humongous, launched earlier were heading towards a 90 mile sized asteroid 8 Flora. U S President immediately ordered the launch of a spy spaceship to 8 Flora to find out the intentions of the Chinese space fleet. This spy spaceship discovered that the Chinese were using autonomous robots to build a base station on 8 Flora. This project was under the leadership of a Chinese top space scientist, Dr. Wei SiMei (Stanley Wilson), a descendent of an immigrant from the United States. Under his leadership, the Chinese were sending minerals from this asteroid. U S immediately began a space project as never seen before, also to establish a mining…